Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Nagaoka Snowman Construction Pte Ltd

I used to have this image: December is the month where it is snowing and it is the coldest month of the year. But after experiencing my second winter in Japan, I was made to realised that it is not December, but January is the month where the temperature can drop below zero degree Celsius, and also the period when it snows heavily.

It has been snowing continuously throughout last week, but as if the weather knew that we had a plan in hand, the sky was bright last Saturday. No hailstorm nor sleet, no strong and cold winds, and it wasn't snowing, which allowed us to carry on with our plan.

The venue: Nagaoka Kosen tennis court.

The tennis courts are covered with snow as thick as half meter.

The tools: Two shovels and a pair of gloves for each of us.

Got these shovels from the dormitory's store room (without permission).

The cast: The three stooges of Nagaoka Kosen.

Wei Shen, Yan Kuang and the sleepy guy.

So, I'm quite sure everyone would be able to guess what our master plan was. This would be my second time constructing a snowman, and I wanted it to be as huge as possible. My first snowman was so short that it was not even one meter tall. Even though we would like to build a huge one, but time was against us because it was already 2 p.m. by then. During the winter season, the sky would start to get dark by 4 p.m. and we knew we had to work as fast as we could.

Without any unnecessary hesitations, we started our work almost immediately.

Scooping and scooping.

And shaping the giant snowball.

The first task is of course to work on the snowman's body. Yan Kuang and me were in-charged of scooping and accumulating the snow to the base of the snowman. On the other hand, Wei Shen used his arm and hands and whatever possible method to make the snow compact, while shaping it into a sphere. As we wanted it to be a huge one, it took us some time to do that. In fact, by the time we were done with its body, one hour had elapsed. That is how long it took us just to work on its body.

The scooping sounds like a simple job, but after doing it a while, it was quite tiring and we exchanged roles once in a while.

Collecting small snowballs and pasting them onto its head.

Next would be to construct the snowman's head. This job was a bit tricky and challenging compared to the body because we had to stretch our body until the tip of the head when we were shaping it. What's more when the snowman we were working on slowly began to get taller and taller, and I realised that I wasn't the tallest creature there anymore. That snowman had grown taller than me, and it was almost two meters high.

Slowly but surely, the shape of the snowman began to appear.

Like what I've mentioned above, it wasn't snowing, and that made our work very much easier because it would be hard to work on our snowman under the falling snowflakes, plus the wind, of course. This is also the first time that I get to use my pair of rubber boots I bought a year ago.

Still can camwhore even though we were busy with our task.

This time, no more time to look at the camera already.

Putting some final touch to the snowman to make sure it's really round.

Finally, after almost two hours of shaping the snowman, it is halfway done.

Tada! Our snowman, which has a orange nose. That's a carrot by the way.

The final task is to decorate the snowman. I went around to look for small branches and twigs to be used as its arms, while the rest continued to put the final touches on the snowman. I came back with two types of branches, one from a pine tree and another from a sakura tree. In the end, we decided to use the sakura twigs because the pine one was too hairy. We didn't want our snowman to be a hairy one, that's why.

We were wondering what should we use as the eyes of the snowman; I suggested to use either two round plates or our gloves, but it wasn't the smartest choice. So, after discussing among ourselves in a short meeting, we came out with the decision to look for stones, preferably, black colour stones.

Clearing the area around the snowman.

The decorating job began.

Here is the final result.

It's a happy snowman.

I would say this snowman looked very much better compared to what I made last year, which I called it an impaired snowman. I bet not everyone is able to build snowman even though you are in Japan, because it only snows at the northern region and we are lucky to get to experience snow every year. That doesn't mean I love snow and winter; in fact, it's the season I dislike most. There are exemptions though. One of them would be we get to build our own snowman anytime, anywhere we want. That is when I would turn so excited, just like a small kid.

Just in case anyone who wish to learn the skill of snowman building, Nagaoka Snowman Construction Pte Ltd is opened 24 hours throughout the year. Just call 755-25-25 and we would try to help you as much as possible so that you would get to build your own snowman as well.

The next thing to do is of course to camwhore with our masterpiece.

#1 - 1 person.

#2 - 2 person.

#3 - 3 person.

#4 - 4 person.

Wei Shen tried to climb on top of the poor snowman and although he did manage to reach the top, it was actually two of us standing behind supporting him.

Shah just needed one try and he was already on top. But the snowman wasn't very happy about it.

Then everybody started to climb onto its head.

Everybody succesfully conquered the snowman. It seems that Shah (top right) is the snowman's only enemy lol.

Nagaoka snowman contractors.

One last group shot.

After we were done with that, we thought of playing around a little bit in the snow. I threw my body onto the ground and the layer of snow acted as a supportive mattress because I didn't feel any pain at all.

However, what followed after that wasn't in our initial planning.

Hi! =)

Here comes the interesting part.

Yan Kuang and the rest began using the shoves, collect the snow around and bury me under the snow. I knew they would use the same old trick of making two boobs at my chest, but not the other one down there. And the size was so much bigger than usual ones, which came with two tennis-ball-sized balls as well.

People say picture tells a thousand of words. I say, this picture tells a million of words.

person■ noun (plural people or persons) a human being regarded as an individual. ▶an individual characterized by a preference or liking for a specified thing: she's not a cat person. ▶a character in a play or story. ▶an individual's body: concealed on his person.